Astor.

The years 1846, '47, and there along, see me still in New York City,
working as writer and printer, having my usual good health, and a good
time generally.


OMNIBUS JAUNTS AND DRIVERS

One phase of those days must by no means go unrecorded--namely, the
Broadway omnibuses, with their drivers.

The vehicles still (I write this paragraph in 1881) give a portion
of the character of Broadway--the Fifth avenue, Madison avenue, and
Twenty-third street lines yet running. But the flush days of the
old Broadway stages, characteristic and copious, are over. The
Yellow-birds, the Red-birds, the original Broadway, the Fourth avenue,
the Knickerbocker, and a dozen others of twenty or thirty years ago,
are all gone. And the men specially identified with them, and giving
vitality and meaning to them--the drivers--a strange, natural,
quick-eyed and wondrous race--(not only Rabelais and Cervantes would
have gloated upon them, but Homer and Shakspere would)--how well I
remember them, and must here give a word about them. How many hours,
forenoons and afternoons--how many exhilarating night-times I have
had--perhaps June or July, in cooler air-riding the whole length of
Broadway, listening to some yarn, (and the most vivid yarns ever spun,
and the rarest mimicry)--or perhaps I declaiming some stormy passage
from Julius Caesar or Richard, (you could roar as loudly as you chose
in that heavy, dense, uninterrupted street-bass.) Yes, I knew all the
drivers then, Broadway Jack, Dressmaker, Balky Bill, George Storms,